The Economy Could Be Pumped Up To £4 Billion Using Marine Energy and Meet 10% Of UK Energy Needs

By Cynthia Taylor

According to a new report the UK is capable of capturing 15% of the marine renewable energy sector globally by 2050 this is worth £4 billion.

The successful harnessing of marine energy has the potential for delivering 10% of the forecast electricity needs of the UK at the same time help to meet the UK’s renewable energy and greenhouse gas emission targets and reduce the reliance on imported gas.

In a report conducted by the Technology Innovation Needs Assessment (TINA) which has been issued by the Low Carbon Innovation Co-ordination Group (LCICG), a co-ordination vehicle for the public sector, that backs funding and the delivery of low carbon, reported that the UK is fortunate it has a large resources of natural marine energy from its tides and waves.

The report also assessed that the eventual role of marine energy in the UK is very uncertain. These marine energy systems are still at the early stage of technology development, and are quite uncertain about the ultimate costs and risks in the sector. It reported that the deployment scenarios range from zero marine energy to more than 20GW by the year 2050 in the UK.

Should the costs be reduced the report suggested that the UK is in a unique position to capture the market share, due to the favourable resources available, it also suggested that this could be as much as 50% of the available European wave resource and 25% of the European tidal resource.

It is expected that most of the deployment will occur after the year 2020, and that the levels of deployment for the current decade would not be enough to have a significant impact on the 2020 carbon and energy emission targets.

Experts at TIMA predict that the costs of marine energy will have to be reduced by 50-70% by about 2025 if it to be able to compete with off-shore wind power and other renewable technologies.

t this stage arrays have not yet been developed, the experts estimate that current costs are around £350-400/MWh for wave energy and £200-300/MWh for tidal energy, the current off-shore costs for wind are £140-80/MWh and cost reductions to £100/MWh by the year 2020 that has been established and validated with the key industry players.

The report continued that this cost reduction level of marine energy is an ambitious target but that it is conceivable, if there are economies of innovation and scale and combined with the appropriate financing and supply chain optimization.

The assessment has been based on a range of expert sources which has been informed of what they had learned from the modelling of future arrays and historical demonstrations.

If parity is reached on marine energy risks and cost with off-shore wind by the year 2025 and other technologies costs of energy generated, could potentially fall even more to £60/MWh by 2050, this could make the cost competitive with fossil fuels, nuclear and CCS.

The successful implementation of this marine energy innovation, could see a reduction of deployment costs by £3-8 billion in the UK.

There is also uncertainty in the global market, there are deployment ranges from no marine energy to over 180GM by the year 2050. However the UK is in a unique position to capture the market share and it is expected that the potential will be 15% of the global market, this is driven by resources that are favourable and dominance of the UK with device developers. Should Marine energy in the UK compete globally then the UK can expect to contribute about 4.3 billion by the year 2050.

The report says that unlocking this opportunity there is a very strong case for targeted public sector intervention that could catalyse the private sector investments. There have been significant market failures for innovation, and the UK cannot place reliance on other countries to come up with the technologies that are needed, within the timeframe, because of these market failures, the problem that are on-going are demand uncertainty, insufficient payback on the early stage R & D, infrastructure conditions and insufficient knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Because the UK cannot place reliance on other countries to develop the technologies that are needed on their behalf, marine energy will not be able to achieve the necessary cost reduction in the window of opportunity that is outlined above, therefore it needs public sector intervention – other countries will take too long to catch up to the UK – plus the UK needs specific technological solutions for installations an foundations systems to address the resource conditions.

Support for innovation throughout the different stages of development of technology is required to play a role in the reduction of costs of the risks and energy, it is expected that the later stages will have the highest innovation costs.

This includes the initial deployment of the first arrays so that it proves a viable cost reduction pathway, support for moving the technology beyond the single device demonstration (5MW). And over the long term, first array development of 2nd generation technology that may be required to find solutions for more difficult conditions such as deep water.

R&D also has to address challenges that are identified in the first arrays, for instance, multi-array deployment, cabling, device interactions, and risk and cost reduction for the creation of the first array to be viable. These are the areas that could provide opportunities for collaboration.

The report emphasizes the need for public intervention which should focus on increased integration and collaboration with RD&D in order to address market failures, and also to join innovation programmes with the supply chain and the infrastructure development.

The LCOCG members have provided large support to marine energy in the UK. They also expect to invest approximately £60-80 million of public sector funding for the next four to five years and to leverage one to three from the private sector.

To achieve the full benefit from this innovation for the next four to ten years will need ongoing European Union and UK funding from the public sector and scaled support for a prioritized technology innovation while they move from design to the demonstration stage.